


The Celestial City

by Petronia



Series: Hannibal stories [8]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bondage, Dom/sub, Dream Sex, M/M, Punishment, not an AU just a metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 14:01:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6757045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petronia/pseuds/Petronia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He remembered, now -- how had he not remembered? -- that Will was the director of the BSHCI. It was Will who had placed Hannibal in this cell, Will to whom the guards and orderlies answered. Will held the key to the door that was not there. </p>
<p>Will had ordered his punishment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Celestial City

 

Sometimes, he dreamt of the cell.

No. That was not the important thing.

He dreamt of  _ waking _ in his cell, in the BSHCI, as he had so often done. That experience was always the same: an initial blank disorientation, followed by realization -- gestalt gripping him whole in that first conscious moment, before defenses and control returned. 

He had been dreaming. The sun, the sea. Warm blood on his hands and on his lips. Will.

It had all been--

He had been bound to the hand gurney as punishment, vertical in his straitjacket and mask, and left to himself. No nurse in the room. A night guard, somewhere unseen, no doubt ignoring him from their station. No light, except for the dim white moon that peered through the skylight and pooled its illumination at his feet.

It had all been--

_ Will. _

He was alone.

 

***

 

After a while he tried to retrieve the dream -- to conjure a memory of Will’s smile, Will’s touch, the certainty of being loved -- but the image fell to bone-china fragments and slipped through his fingers: it was never real, he couldn’t remember. It wouldn’t sustain him.

He reached out for music and found none.

Hours passed. No one came. 

Days passed.

 

***

 

(The cell was eternal: a secret room in his palace. That was its nature. In conscious moments he avoided it effortlessly, but sometimes, dreaming, he was lost and found himself there. Once inside, he could not leave again. 

The cell had no door.)

 

***

 

The door that had not been there opened.

“Have you been in the dark?” said Will’s voice.  _ Will _ \-- a silhouette against a blazing rectangle of light, visible for a moment before the door closed again and it disappeared, leaving a blue afterimage like a dying flame. Hannibal closed his eyes, dazzled. “We should do something about those fuses.”

“It’s enough to see by,” Hannibal said. He remembered, now -- how had he not remembered? -- that Will was the director of the BSHCI. It was Will who had placed Hannibal in this cell, Will to whom the guards and orderlies answered. Will held the key to the door that was not there. 

Will had ordered his punishment.

Hannibal could not remember his transgression. It did not matter: there had been so many crimes, and Will had punished him for each one. Perhaps he had tried to escape.

No.

If he escaped he would no longer see Will. What good was that? Where would he go?

Hannibal opened his eyes again. He could see, now, by moonlight. Will was dressed in the lovely blue suit he’d worn in Florence, before blood and bullets had ruined it, and a white shirt that gleamed in the penumbra. His hair was combed and fell in waves over his forehead. He was so beautiful it made Hannibal ache, in satisfaction and renewed desire all at once.

“This is what you want, isn’t it?” said Will, voice pitched low and amused. “I know. Presence, attention. Intimacy bound up in trust. To see… and to be seen.”

He approached the plexiglass and laid a hand on it.

“Nothing else matters to you. So I’m obliged to deny you these things. Even their memory, since memory can be relived. Even the hope that they exist. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” said Hannibal. “That is your design.”

“Good,” said Will.

He turned and left.

 

***

 

He woke in his cell, as he had so often done, and--

 

***

 

He was alone.

He had always been alone, hadn’t he? Ever since he was a child.

Only, he had thought once, that--

 

***

 

Years passed.

 

***

 

“You have an affinity for cruelty, Will,” he said. 

“My affinity is for justice,” said Will. “Cruelty befits the object.”

“Does it?” Hannibal murmured. He was lying, still bound and masked, on his cot, with his head on Will’s lap. He could not remember how he had come to be there. But Will could do as he liked: there could be drugs in Hannibal’s food, in his water. The cameras would be off, the guards would turn their backs. “Am I undeserving of mercy, Will?”

“Isn’t this mercy?” Will said. Hannibal heard more than saw his smile. His fingers threaded through Hannibal’s hair, petting it absently -- as he might one of his dogs -- tracing the straps and buckles that held the mask in place. Hannibal closed his eyes and trembled. “What would you call it?”

“It’s artistry,” said Hannibal. “Variations of intensity, for effect.” 

“Would you like me to stop?” said Will.

Hannibal said nothing. Will continued to caress him, and each warm brush of his fingers filled Hannibal up until he could not bear the feeling; until it could not help but overflow. Words choked in his throat, and he let out a shaking breath around them.

“Shh,” said Will, and did something to the buckles. A sensation of release, of falling away. “Come on, on your knees. You know this part.”

He did. He knew this part. Will only had to undo his trouser button, and he leant forward to catch the zipper tab with his teeth. Will’s clean, masculine scent filled his nostrils, and for a while there was no thought, nothing, only the heat and taste and weight of him filling Hannibal’s mouth. 

Will guided him with both hands and thrust, gently enough, but demanding. Hannibal opened his throat and let him take what he wanted, let himself struggle and choke so Will could have that too. His own cock throbbed, constricted by the straitjacket to the point of pain.

“That’s good,” Will said, dreamily. “You feel good.” He pulled away, and Hannibal licked at his thumb when it passed over his bottom lip, to catch the slick wetness there. “Not so afraid now, are we? Go ahead, ask for what you want.”

“Don’t leave me here,” said Hannibal. Then the words wouldn’t stop. “Take me with you. I want -- I want to be yours, just like this, always, you can do what you want, only -- please. Please, Will, I love you.”

(Will had outplayed him long ago. What did it matter if he showed his hand now?)

“Take you with me?” Will said. “Would  _ that _ be mercy?”

He pressed his cock against Hannibal’s lips again, one hand on the side of his jaw to direct him.

Hannibal came, untouched, not long after that: a kind of involuntary letting go, as if the pressure between his legs had simply grown too much to bear. But that pleasure was nothing compared to how Will used him, over and over, until his throat felt raw and sore, then pulled back and spilled on his tongue -- over his face and throat, in hot splashes that felt like blood.

That was bliss, and he chased it into the dark.

 

***

 

He slumped on his side, on the floor of the cell cool with moonlight, and Will gazed down at him. He had watched as Will re-buttoned, straightened his cuffs and hair. Making ready to go.

“I did take you with me, Hannibal,” he said. “Remember? That’s why you’re here.”

 

***

 

For a moment, when Will left, light broke over him: great, burning white panes like sun reflected by the sea. Then it was gone, and only the afterimage remained.

 

***

 

He woke, and--

 

***

 

(The cell had no door.)

  
  
  



End file.
